Why aircraft carriers are the best (and worst) place for laser weapons

When U.S. Navy leaders declared that “the dream of a laser on every ship can become a real one” earlier this year, they apparently had one particular ship in mind. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush shot down multiple drones with a high-energy laser weapon stationed on its flight deck during a first-of-its-kind live-fire test in October 2025, the Navy recently revealed. Photos published to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) o...